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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25793161">Once Removed</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesilverarrow/pseuds/thesilverarrow'>thesilverarrow</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>James Bond (Craig movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, M/M, Polyamory</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:21:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,927</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25793161</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesilverarrow/pseuds/thesilverarrow</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“007 is inbound,” she announces as she walks through his office.</em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Oh?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em> She leans a little closer as she passes him, murmuring, "Can we meet at yours?"</em>
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eve Moneypenny &amp; Q, James Bond/Eve Moneypenny, James Bond/Q</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Once Removed</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Set somewhere between <em>Skyfall</em> and <em>Spectre</em>, perhaps?</p><p>This piece is not meant to insinuate that gay men are all secretly bisexual. It's more a character piece that explores how there might develop a romantic kind of friendship between this particular gay man and straight woman, given the intimacy of sharing a lover. (And let's be honest -- Q here is probably, like, a Kinsey 5.)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“007 is inbound,” she announces as she walks through his office.</p><p>“Oh?”</p><p>She leans a little closer as she passes him, murmuring, "Can we meet at yours?" </p><p>Her expression is halfway between friendly and suggestive in a way that makes perfect sense to them. It also gives people the wrong impression. His coworker raises his eyebrows as if to say, <em> Sucks for you</em>. Sometimes, it's more like, <em> Better luck next time</em>.</p><p>Little does he know. Thankfully. While James Bond is not particularly bothered about having his personal life serve as grist for the rumor mill, Eve Moneypenny prefers to keep her activities shrouded in mystery. Of course, it's sometimes a very noticeable shroud, but for her that's apparently half the fun.</p><p>Q would rather not be talked about at all, whether people are trading facts or surmises, but he's learned to endure these assumptions, at least. In fact, he's found it's earned him some goodwill. There are many people he's very happy to let believe he's got a nice, soft underbelly of loneliness to pity and exploit.</p><p>"Grand plans for tonight, then?" he calls out to her retreating back, playing his part.</p><p>She turns that beautiful head of hers, and his heart nearly skips a beat. It's possible he's fallen a little in love with her, in a way he can't quite define.</p><p>"Late,” she says. </p><p>But her eyes remind him of the yet-unanswered question: <em> At yours? </em></p><p>He nods, then he takes a sip from his coffee and ponders just how tragic his flat looks, how much he gives a shit about it being clean for them.</p><p>He also wonders just how many pieces the man will be in.</p><p>*</p><p>She always has a glass or two of wine. He's not sure if it's to dull the anticipation or to make conversation with him tolerable. Maybe a bit of both. They don't talk much. Usually, they don't need to, not where Bond is concerned.</p><p>Except at first, of course, when their two arrangements were brought out into the open:</p><p>
  <em> You're sure you don't mind sharing? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I prefer it. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Do you prefer it…literally? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Are you asking if I want to be part of a threesome? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Depends on what you mean by that. </em>
</p><p>What he meant, what she meant, was a damn sight more complicated than Bond has yet to understand. He's by no means bothered to have them both in the room with him at the same time, looking, listening, touching. What he's never quite figured out is how they could want to be touching each other in the process.</p><p>It goes something like this, usually:</p><p>Bond says, <em> But aren't you…? </em></p><p>He murmurs, smiling, <em> I haven't forgotten. </em></p><p>She adds, <em> He doesn't mind. </em> </p><p>Bond shakes his head and allows his confusion to be subdued again, with hands or mouths or, more rarely, a few more words.</p><p>Tonight, he steals a long, wandering glance at her face, her hands, her long legs, remembering the last time. They are beautiful together. He imagines she might feel the same way watching him with Bond, or at the very least she doesn't find his presence off-putting.</p><p>It wasn't until several encounters together that he supposed they too -- Eve and himself -- were lovely together, brown and ivory hands meeting at the small of the man's back, one kissing skin still damp from the other's lips, legs entwined because there was nowhere else for those legs to be. And sometimes when there damn well was. </p><p>*</p><p>Bond is late, and not for the first time. International travel being what it is, Bond is not always coming through the door when they expect him. He's spent several nights on Eve's couch, awakened at first light to a pair of weary blue eyes and soon drifting off to sleep again in her large bed. Or not so much sleeping as enjoying the quiet, the solidity of that ludicrous man and, next to him, his stubborn girlfriend, the both of them snoring.</p><p>But this is different, and it's not just because they're at his flat instead of hers. Eve is a bit pissed, and tonight she's a chatterer. Usually, waiting like this, he reads a book he plucks off her shelves while she watches the television at low volume or, sometimes, cleans the house. Not so tonight. There are books, and the telly is on, but she's only half watching it. </p><p>She keeps looking at him, kindly but appraising nonetheless.</p><p>"Is it easier when I'm not here?" she says, apropos of nothing.</p><p>"Is what easier?" he replies -- like he doesn't know exactly what she means. He supposes he needs to hear her say it.</p><p>"Being with him."</p><p>"You tell me: Is it easier when I'm not involved?"</p><p>"Not the same thing."</p><p>"Why?”</p><p>“You know why. And don’t try that mysterious smile on me like I don’t know you’re trying to avoid an answer.”</p><p>He isn't, actually. He's caught up in her eyes, trying to read her face, forgetting that she is now, as she is when they're in bed, relatively unguarded. Which is how he knows she is appraising him, too. But she always is. Sometimes that means staring at his chest and his ass in a way few women ever have.</p><p>“Put it this way: I've never wagered you find me any more attractive than I find you."</p><p>"Good thing you're not a betting man,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “Because you'd be wrong. I think you're very attractive."</p><p>"Then apparently I'm not wrong," he replies, allowing a smile to take over his features for a moment.</p><p>When his meaning penetrates the chardonnay, she smiles, too, still unguarded but a little skeptical.</p><p>The moment apparently weighing a bit too heavily, she flits away, toward the kitchen, saying, "Do you have anything I can snack on, love?"</p><p>He watches her rummaging in his kitchen cabinets, and her running commentary on his life choices is amusing enough he doesn't point her to the one with the crackers and biscuits and macadamias.</p><p>"It's not easier, by the way," he says. "Without you. Different, and somehow more complicated, actually."</p><p>"As though it takes two people to…"</p><p>"But nothing does. Not really. He merely finds brief moments of respite."</p><p>He expects her to argue, but she's too smart for that. She just sighs and forces her face back into a smile, no longer easy but somehow more precious for all that.</p><p>"I like to think we manage better," she says.</p><p>“Each of us, or together?”</p><p>She just smiles, pausing only momentarily in her perusal of the cabinet. Then she pulls out a box and holds it up triumphantly.</p><p>"Hobnobs!"</p><p>*</p><p>After a few biscuits, she convinces him to have a glass of wine with her. It's a terrible plan, but he is in his own home, after all. And he does admit he likes the way his body moves more freely, even if he begins to talk so quickly she has to tell him to slow down and explain sometimes, for Christ's sake, I'm not even sort of a computer programmer, love.</p><p>They go to bed. Clothes on, rolling about and literally poking each other, playfully, like squabbling children, then sitting up again because (as she giggles), Oh I think I'm really off it now. </p><p>However, he's not spinning. He's just warm and light, and then he remembers… They're waiting -- for an airplane, and on it an impossible, nearly impenetrable man. Bond is in less danger now than when he's in the field, but he's still Bond, and, even if he weren't, the last bit of the waiting is always excruciating.</p><p>The frown must tell on his face, because she leans forward and kisses him on the mouth, pleadingly. She's seen him do the same to Bond, and now he knows why it works. She's so very serious, but in a way that manages to take a weight off a person. He wonders where it goes; her shoulders may sag, but they never quite fall.</p><p>She says, "They promised they'd give me a ring when he touches down."</p><p>He sighs and watches her lie back down. He's unwilling to let go of her hand, so he doesn't.</p><p>After a beat, she springs up again, grimacing. </p><p>"Bottle's not empty, is it?" she asks.</p><p>It's on the dresser, so far away, but he leaves the cozy, ridiculous world of the bed so that he can pluck up the bottle and swallow down the last of it. It takes a couple of goes. </p><p>"Cheeky," she says, laughing and holding out her hand to him. "Come back here, boyfriend once removed."</p><p>So he does. </p><p>*</p><p>It's three o'clock when she gets the text message. They're propped up against the headboard, drinking tea and dissecting a terrible movie she's watching -- okay, <em> they're </em> watching -- on her iPad. She's mostly sleepy now, from the wine and from a shower she took about half an hour ago, so her words slur. Her mind, however, is sharper than ever.</p><p>"I'm in my pants," she suddenly says, eyes a bit wide, as though he would have forgotten that he's sitting thigh to bare thigh with her.</p><p>"Well, mine, actually."</p><p>"But <em>you're</em> not in your pants."</p><p>"Technically, I am in them. I just have a lot of other—"</p><p>"Oh, honestly."</p><p>"What? Are you afraid he'll be jealous?"</p><p>"No."</p><p>"No?"</p><p>There's apparently just enough energy left in her for mischief: "I mean, not afraid."</p><p>It suits her. Apparently, it really suits him, too, because as he gets up and begins to pull off his clothes, she grins from ear to ear.</p><p>He's taking off his now-absurd black socks when she drifts past him and out into the sitting room.</p><p>"Maybe you lost at strip poker?" she calls back to him. </p><p>"I would never."</p><p>"Don't tell me you count cards."</p><p>"Could, I suppose, but I don't."</p><p>"Of course. You're too smart to gamble at all."</p><p>He stands in the doorway, feeling too close to naked and somewhat ridiculous, watching her wrap herself in the worn blanket thrown over the back of his sofa. He wonders if there's enough blanket to share.</p><p>"I appreciate your faith in me," he replies, "but I honestly just can't be bothered. Not unless there's something worthwhile at stake."</p><p>It occurs to him that he bothers with a lot of things lately that he normally wouldn’t, and having a woman as a metamore and occasional bedfellow is the least of it.</p><p>*</p><p>In the end, they decide that this man of all people should appreciate a complete lack of bullshit excuses.</p><p>Bond seems somewhat surprised to see her, as this conclave at his house is unprecedented. Their relative state of undress, on the other hand, apparently doesn't faze him much, at least not for long.</p><p>With a kiss on Eve's cheek, he simply says, "Fancy meeting you here."</p><p>Then Bond turns and lays his hand on his neck. "Lovely to see you again," he says, thumb lingering over his jawline for a moment.</p><p>The man is clearly exhausted, but as they tackle the buttons on his shirt front and cuffs, he can't stop his hands from roaming over what skin they find. He does, indeed, look a bit askance as they talk in shorthand and communicate with easy touches to arms, backs, stomachs -- but mostly, it’s with curiosity rather than confusion or even surprise.</p><p>He just raises an eyebrow, smiling as he murmurs, "You two would be a terrifying pair if you were foe instead of friend.”</p><p>“We might be anyway,” she says with a grin, leading him back to the bedroom.</p>
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